Facebook video shows LAPD shooting of homeless man

Swedish court finds The Pirate Bay founders guilty

A Stockholm court has found the four founders of The Pirate Bay - one of the world's top websites for illegal file-sharing - guilty of promoting copyright infringement. The four men were each sentenced to a year in prison.

AFP - A Stockholm court Friday found four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running The Pirate Bay, one of the world's top websites for illegal filesharing, and sentenced them to a year in prison.

The court also ordered the four -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstroem -- to pay damages of 30 million kronor (2.72 million euros, 3.56 million dollars).

"The Stockholm district court has today convicted the four people charged with promoting other people's infringement of copyright laws," it said in a statement.

Representatives of the movie, music and video games industry had sought some 117 million kronor (10.6 million euros, 13.9 million dollars) in damages and interest for losses incurred from tens of millions of illegal downloads facilitated by the site.

Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay makes it possible to skirt copyright fees and share music, film and computer game files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site.

None of the material can thus be found on The Pirate Bay server itself.

The four have denied any wrongdoing. In the days prior to the verdict they indicated they would appeal it if they were convicted.